Hey all. As you can probably see, I am new to this forum, and to Civilization. My question is when is a good time to build the FP? I saw the thread on ring city placement so right now my palace is directly in the middle of the core cities. However, the cities that i have gained through my military diplomacy (
are all but fully corrupt. I have been trying to clear out my next set of core cities but the going is slow. SHould I just build the FP where my palace is and then move the palace later or what. Oh, I play the vanilla version on Regent. Thanks.
There are by and large three different types of FP/Palace placement that I use:
The first is to use the FP to simply enlargen the original core. The FP is placed either into the first, or second ring and make sure that the area where corruption is manageable is shaped like an ellipsis. This is a fairly quick and easy way for FP placement and you will have little problems to handbuild everything, viz. you'll have little problems if you can't rely on leaders. I generally use this kind FP/Palace scheme when I play a fairly peaceful, fast research game. The drawback is that this kind of placement does not tap the full potential of the FP though.
The second is to use the FP to build a second, independent core. One of the requirements is of course that you
have the land for the second core area, and a second that you need a leader (leaving aside any kind of palace jumps by abandoning) to pull it off. Both of these requirements call for conquest and war. Then there are two ways, in which this can be done. First, Palace in the old core, FP in the second core. Second, FP in the old core, and Palace in the second. Which of these to use is somewhat dependent on what kind of RCP you decided on in your old core.
For example, in one game I used a very tight city placement in my original core with the first set of cities at distance 3, and then later realized that the cities in Egypt, which I had conquered, were already neatly placed at distance 5 around the former Egpytian capital Thebes. Placing the new FP there wouldn't net me all that much in terms of really good, rank1 cities. So, I decided to prebuild the FP in my old capital, Beijing, and when the prebuild was ready to move the Palace away, to the new land, to Thebes. Now I only had to switch the prebuild in now fully corrupt Beijing, to Forbidden Palace, and voilà I am more than twice as strong in terms of uncorrupted commerce and shield, than before.
But normally, if your original core isn't that tightly spaced, it may just be easier to leave the Palace where it is and move the FP to the second core and be done with it.
And then there is the last type of FP and Palace placement, which is by far the strongest, and most exploitive. And that is the remote Palace. Roughly you place the FP somewhere into a fairly central position and then move the Palace to some place somewhere far, far away. And while it is the potentially strongest scheme, it generally also takes a really high investment. You'll need a lot of cities around the FP to make it more profitable than the other two placements, and probably several leaders and a far away location (and a leader in that far away location) to pull it off.
So, by and large, the decision on what to do with the FP will depend to a very high degree on what kind of game you want, and what you expect to get, say, in terms of leaders. Maybe if you showed some screenshots I could give some more help with what good options in your particular game are. But in any case, leaders are pretty much necessary for the big FP magicks.
And one more afterthought, you don't have to build the FP as quickly as you can per se. RCP already permits you to build as large original core by just relying on the Palace.
